Not the best start this morning, given that I woke up with a horrific sore throat, aches and a runny nose. Life goes on, a threw some pills down me and headed for the usual hotel buffet breakfast, substituting bacon for porridge, and juice for honey tea.

We were receiving a hire car for 2 days, this arrived at around 11am. The plan for the day was to drive down the ‘1’ highway round the southern coast of Iceland and stop off at some sights along the way.
We pulled over at a ‘bonus’ supermarket along the way to try and find some strepsils (sore throat medicine) but to no avail, we did however grab some drinks and snacks for the road, a bottle of juice and 3 random chocolate bars for yours truly – I thought it akin to unwrapping presents at christmas as I had no idea what type of chocolate it might be. One cool thing worth mentioning about this supermarket, instead of having aisles with fridges, they have just decided to build one giant walk in fridge and throw all of the milk, fish, meat etc in there.

First major stop, Selandjafoss, also known as the waterfall you can walk behind. True to its unoffical description, the water falls wide from the cliff it is apart of, and falls into a small pool at the bottom before going downstream. The spray from the falling water was pretty insane, especially when paired with the wind. We walked behind and around it as expected, the pathway was less concrete than we had anticipated though, with the majority of it being mud and sharp rocks, the final climb at the end being more akin to rock climbing than a staircase.

We also took a little walk further down where there were 2 other, smaller waterfalls to look at. These were still pretty, though obviously not quite on the same scale as the one we had come especially to see.

I think it’s also around this time I cracked open the first of my mystery chocolate bars, a horrific double stick of liquorice lay in the centre of the milk chocolate bar, the nuts on the outside poking through the packaging had given me false hope. I hate liquorice :(

Second major stop was the incredible Skogafoss, yet another waterfall, this time falling straight down and into a pool, with scale over other features. Mr Sun had decided to make a special appearance for this one, and blessed us with double rainbows through the water spray. Easily the most beautiful thing i’ve seen in Iceland thus far.
Getting close to it to take photos was rewarded with a camera lens full of water, and getting close to it to let my mum take a photo of me was greeted by a face full of water, yet so worth it for the pictures and memories. I think that picture of me in the waterfall is my favourite shot of the holiday.

We also trekked up a side path to the top of the nearby hill to see the top of the waterfall, though that turned out to be less impressive than the general view out to the mountains. I think it was around 400-500 steps or so to get up there, so pretty tiring stuff, with the wind battering us around, I was particularly worried the wind might blow my father off the side of the staircase as there are parts with no handrail and the stairs themselves were of questionable quality and coated with a reassuring layer of rust.

Next stop was the village of Vik, somewhere around the southernmost point of the island. Vik is famed for its black volcanic sands and cubic stone formations, unfortunately for us, the weather had taken a turn for the worst, and so all that was there for us at Vik was a salvo of attacks from the wind and a high tide which barred us from getting around to seeing the stone formations. bummer. Here is a picture I took of the black sands anyway though.

Desperately trying to find something to make our trip to Vik worthwhile, we searched our map for anything that looked vaguely interesting. A national park emblem was over some name I can’t even remember, vaguely west of Vik. What the hell we thought, and head off in that direction following random signposts and our sat-nav. About 3 miles into some random field we cut our losses and turned back.

Our last destination was Dyrhólaey, a small peninsula just west of Vik, supposedly you can see an elephant looking rock formation here, but once again, all we got was a face full of wind and some broken promises. The high tide and rough waves barred us from having any chance at going around the coast to admire the cliffs so we took didn’t hang around for too long before heading back to ol’ Reykjavik.

The drive back to the city felt much longer than the drive out, the icelandic speed limit being a pathetic 90km/h (56mph), the roads themselves were straight and easy to drive at least, and host to a lovely horizon full of mountains and glaciers, as well as cattle and more icelandic horses. There seems to be an odd trend of crazy farmers building small shacks at the bottom of mountains, as if they want a boulder to roll down and murder them in their sleep, I’m not sure whats up with that. The barren landscape of Iceland did remind me of Minecraft though, just huge plains with mountains, and then random summer houses and farms strewn about the place, with little concern for geography or accessibility, maybe they just want some peace and quiet.

I got to try my hand at a little bit of driving in the hire car, an automatic Toyota Yaris, the left hand drive was weird, as was driving on the right hand side of the road, but I guess you get used to it eventually. Im not sure i’d trust myself driving around the city though.

Back in Reykjavik and it’s around 9pm, we did had a small late lunch at a service station back in Vik (just a sandwich and chips, nothing special) so we figured we’d go for some conveyer belt sushi, as we wouldn’t be locked in to eating a full meal at least. The sushi wasn’t particularly amazing though, nor was it much fun to photograph. We went for another hotdog afterwards, tasted better the second time around, despite already being full from sushi.

A very lazy start today, the bus to take us to the Blue Lagoon wasn’t arriving until 10:30am, which gave us plenty of time to sleep in, eat breakfast and then surf the web for places to eat later.

Come 10:35, our coach shows up and we are off to the Blue Lagoon, around an hour or so trip from the bus depot, and in the middle of nowhere, we finally arrive to a small clearing amongst a giant field of rock, a flag pole and sign are all that are outside to signify you have arrived at the world famous geothermal pool. We take a brief walk outside in the wind, down a narrow alley between rocks, where a gigantic cloud of steam is pouring out of the building complex in front.

After presenting our tickets and getting our wristbands, it’s off to the changing rooms and then out into the actual pool area in only a swimming suit. The wind outside is maybe 3°C, wind chill effect possibly bringing it to around 0°C, we quickly run towards the lagoon and slowly get in..

It’s incredibly warm, hot even. It’s unlike anything i’ve ever experienced. The water is a light blue hue despite the black and grey sands sitting at the bottom, the rising steam creating a thick fog to further immerse you into the lagoon. It was rather disappointing taking the pictures, as it is impossible to properly show the experience you get without taking the camera into the water, while it looks more like mist in the pictures, when you are in the water your visibility rapidly drops because of all of the steam, at times we were able to look around and feel completely alone in the water, with only hot spring water and the mountains in the background to accompany us.

There was more than just a small pool area of course, a steam room (cave), sauna, hot waterfall, massage area (extra cost of course) and floating bar were also present. Around the lagoon were also some boxes filled with silca mud – supposedly good for the skin, it’s ritual to smear some on your face as you float about the bath.

After a long enjoyable soak in the lagoon, we were off back to Reykjavik again, to clean ourselves up and then have a walk around the harbour area. It’s already 5:30pm or so by the time we are preparing to walk to town, however the sky is still bright as ever – I can’t remember if i’ve mentioned this yet, but it doesn’t really get dark here. Even at 10pm, it’s impossible to sleep without closing the curtains as the sky is still bright – and if you wake up at 3am, the light peaking through the curtains can completely disorient you as to whether it’s 11pm or 7am. As I type this at around 10pm, the sun has only just set.

A long walk from our hotel later, we are by the harbour and trying to locate the famous icelandic hot dog stand ‘Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur’, a hot dog stand so famous it has its own wikipedia article and a google search of the stall turns up a picture of Bill Clinton at the stand. These things are supposedly the best hot dogs in the world, and have been voted into the top fast food stalls in the world and so on, naturally of course I was expecting something special. The stall itself was small and modest, though adorned with small groups of tourists and locals alike, they say there is a queue at all times of day when the shop is open, and in our short time in line we saw 2 cars stop at the side of the road just for the dogs.

They were good. I mean, it goes without saying that it was going to be good, but yeah, they really were – Perhaps not quite the best hot dogs in the world, nor the number 2 best fast food in the world, but it was a good hot dog and it was served quickly. It was fairly barebones in its construction, but the secret lies in the sauce and in the finely chopped onions underneath the sausage which adds a lovely spark of sweetness and crunch to each mouthful.

Moving on, we stopped off at the national theatre of Iceland, a large building on the waterfront with an impressive glass front. It was around this point I noticed the multiple EVE Online Fanfest billboards around the place, apparently this fanfest is taking place from the 1st-3rd of May, and the fans were already out in full force – Some restaurants were also sporting small plaques saying supporters of EVE fanfest. I didn’t get to take a picture of it, but I also saw a guy walking around the theatre with the logo shaved into the side of his head. Hardcore. Also a very stark contrast to the random groups of little girls prancing around upstairs, I can only imagine what sort of Icelandic Oliver twist troupe they belong to.

From the theatre we walked down the seafront a little, taking in the scenery, a beautiful collection of mountains in the distance over the water. We stopped to take a few pictures and then moved on to find dinner.

Passing through the main shopping district of Reykjavik and taking in the sights there as well, we would eventually head back to the church on the hill to a restaurant called Kol. Lovely 3 course meal here, with prawn cocktail for starter, followed by cod and finished with an overly sweet coffee ice cream upon melted chocolate toffee mouse thing. Very tasty.

After an odd night of sleep in the hotel bed with an oddly soft pillow, it was an early start at 7am for hotel breakfast, which wasn’t really anything to write home about – the usual selection of hot and cold breakfast foods.

The tour bus came to pick us up at 8am, a gigantic almost jeep like vehicle which should have been a reminder that we were going to venture back out into the endless fields of nothingness. The golden circle is apparently a pretty established tourist route in Iceland, to the point where it has its own wikipedia article. Our first stop was in Þingvellir national park,  a 40 minute walk or so above, through and around some cliffs, and then across a series of streams via bridge. It was an incredibly scenic route, with a particularly impressive overlook of the nearby lake and the mountains in the distance. Some of the pictures I took almost look fake because of the picturesque scenery in the distance.

The final bridge overlooks a gorge part submerged in water, possibly due to the ridiculous clarity of the water, tourists now throw coins into it and it has become home to a glittering floor, the sunlight passing straight through the water and bouncing off the various currency at the bottom. Beautiful to see, and impossible to properly capture in a picture.

After Þingvellir we moved on to Gulfoss Waterfall, which also apparently goes by the name ‘Golden waterfall’. The scale of this one was much more than I anticipated, I hadn’t done any research into the country prior and so I was expecting just a small single stream waterfall, what I got instead was a  behemoth some 20m wide with 3 actual falls to it. The water spray from the waterfall itself easily reached us even atop the cliff some distance away.

After taking in the waterfall, and taking a fair few dozen photos of it, we headed to the nearby cafe, a lone building by the top of the waterfall. Here we had traditional icelandic lamb soup, a dish so popular that (according to my tour guide anyway) the icelandic government supposedly use it to estimate tourism figures for the country. it was very nice, and had an almost viking feel to it, maybe it’s just because of the recent episode of game of thrones, but I felt like brief step back in time as i plunged bread into the liquid stew of veg and lamb.

Back on the bus again headed to the next stop, when suddenly the driver pulls over and our tour guide leads everyone out onto the side of the road. A pack of Icelandic horses literally runs towards us, completely unafraid. The horses line up side by side at the fence as our tour group pet them, this breed of horse look fluffier than the normal ones, and are smaller than regular breeds of horse, though not quite looking small enough to be a pony, they were very friendly though, or perhaps fearless is the word.

Approximately 2pm as we arrive at ‘Haukadalur’, more commonly known as the Iceland geysers (pronounced Gay-zir apparently). The geyser site is littered with tons of smaller geothermal pools, each spewing out their own stack of steam. The main attraction is Strokkur, the actual active geyser – it explodes every 3-8 minutes or so, and waiting for it to erupt is both exciting and incredibly stressful, particularly if you are a photographer. The water in the pool begins to stir and bob, and then the steam will pick up slightly until eventually a giant bubble bursts forth from the pool, a flash of bluegreen light from beneath accompanying a loud boom as the geyser erupts into the sky, quickly followed by steam, lots and lots of steam, oh a smell of sulfur too.

We spent a good hour walking around the geothermal valley, I personally spent probably 20 minutes trying to photograph the geyser erupting, a practice consisting of 5 minutes staring intently at a pool of water, followed by scratching your nose and missing your photo opportunity as the geyser erupts and laughs in your face.

Our coach took another unscheduled stop at waterfall Faxi, a small yet wide waterfall with some fantastic colour in the water, particularly where the falling water meets the river below. Of special note was the salmon ladder on the left, designed to let salmon more easily jump upstream. The only downside to this waterfall was the gigantic sheep pen upwind of the site, which gave the whole place a horrid livestock smell.

We weren’t done yet of course, we also took short stops at Skálholt church, Kerið Volcanic crater (inactive volcano) and a geothermal power plant (though we didn’t enter this one properly due to time constraints).

After this long and exhausting 8 hour tour of the countries sweet spots, we were dropped off at our hotel, where we were about ready to have dinner. We ended up eating at the hotel, as it had started raining outside and the 20 minute walk into downtown didn’t sound like the most fun idea in the world. Our hotel food was buffet style, and mostly consisted of fish, featuring about 4 or 5 different types of fish, No pictures of this one as it wasn’t particularly impressive to look at. Food was decent, though far from yesterdays amazing dinner. We retired for the night after eating. Gotta get some rest for tomorrow, even though tomorrow should be more relaxing than today as we are in the infamous blue lagoon.

A reasonable start at 8am, as usual my dad is eager and raring to go, shouting that we need to be at the airport for 10am because the gate opens at 12 (for our flight at 1pm, yes, really.)

After what feels like an eternity in the car to the airport, the airport waiting lounge and the 3 hour flight itself, we finally arrive in Iceland, the plane drifts over what is likely hundreds of miles of barren land littered with rocks and brown moss for as far as the eye can see, my first impressions of this country are off to a rocky start (pun intended).

After leaving the airport and being slapped by the frosty Iceland wind, we take a coach to the city of Reykjavik, our bus slowly taking us away from the rock fields and towards actual civilization. Our hotel is the ‘Radisson blu saga hotel’, a 8 floor giant in the middle of nowhere and approximately 20 minutes walk from anything we might want to visit, the hotel itself seems nice enough though. By the time we set our luggage down in our hotel room it’s already 5pm and our stomachs are starting to roar, it’s off to the city to find something to eat then.
The hotel concierge say’s its a 15 minute walk into the city, “just head towards the church” he says, outside the hotel it becomes quickly obvious which church he is describing, a white/beige tower in the distance high above the residential housing in the city.

25 minutes later (because the hotel concierge is full of shit), we are finally in the city centre by the church, and searching for somewhere nice to eat. We eventually stumble upon ‘Sjavargrillid’, a seafood restaurant holding the #3 spot for best food in Reykjavik. How could we resist?
At 25,600 ISK (Approx £140) for 3 people, this was not the cheapest meal i’ve ever had, but my god was it a treat. Firstly, you can tell you are in a fancy restaurant when they start introducing purees, we ordered the 4 course ‘taste of Iceland’, which turned out to be 6 courses as the waiter brought us 2 complimentary dishes.

We started with bread and cream cheese with salmon, fancy, but nothing too ridiculous just yet..
The second course was langosteen and fish served with apple and rhubarb.
This was followed by possibly the most bizarre dish I have ever encountered, it had Minke Whale, Puffin, Blackbird, 2 types of sweet onion, a myriad of sauces, and then a rather bizarre almost kind of dessert corner, with blueberries, blueberry sorbet, ginger biscuit and small balls of what I can only describe as tasting like popcorn. It was so strange, yet still amazingly good, the whale had a bit of a liver taste to it, the puffin tasted surprisingly close to beef and the blackbird was just odd.
Course number 4 was slightly more normal, with grilled lamb upon potato with onion ring and various other stuff (including what I can only assume is crack cocaine).
Next up some vanilla ice cream upon ginger biscuit, this was apparently on the house to tide us over until actual dessert, because the chefs had kept us waiting a whole 7 minutes? I guess this is why they have such a high rating on tripadvisor.
Finally, a very heavy chocolate fudge kind of cake with more ice cream and melted chocolate.

Nothing particularly noteworthy after dinner, a short walk through the city on the way back to the hotel. The sun here is ridiculous, here are a few pictures taken on the way back, consider that these are taken at 8:30pm onwards and going as far as 9:30pm or so.

Thats all for the first day, we didn’t really get up to a whole lot because of travelling taking up 2/3’s of the day, hopefully there will be much more to report tomorrow.